Because of limited internal space in vehicles, a variety of cargo or leisure equipment is loaded on the roof thereof. To this end, a luggage carrier is mounted on the roof of a vehicle.
The luggage carrier for many vehicles of today includes mounting rails which are provided on both sides of the roof in the longitudinal direction of a vehicle, and load bars which are transversely mounted between the mounting rails. The load bars are secured to the mounting rails so as to hold cargo at a predetermined position. When it is required to remove or to change the position of the load bars, it is necessary to release the load bar from the mounting rails. Thus, the luggage carrier is constructed so that a passenger adjusts the position of the load bar to be appropriate to the size or length of the cargo, and secures the load bar at the adjusted position between the mounting rails.
Conventional load bars of a luggage carrier for vehicles is often problematic in that it includes a support foot having fastening devices with mechanisms including levers in combination with wires and/or springs making the construction complicated, and the manufacturing cost may be high. Further, after the wires and/or springs have been used for a period of time, the durability of a product is reduced due to the deterioration of the wires and/or springs. Further, it has been found that operating the lever may be difficult.
Other, past known locking assemblies have been developed including a manually rotatable knob which can draw a cam member against the rail or tool which locks/releases the support foot and load bar. These past known mechanisms have been found unsatisfactory because they are inconvenient to the user. Vehicle owners tend to misplace tools used to release support foots while knob-operated mechanisms may be difficult to rotate with sufficient force.
The document U.S. Pat. No. 4,911,348 shows adjustable cross rails with support stanchions which includes a release mechanism which conforms to the configuration of the stanchion and the cross rails are capable of being brought into contiguous engagement to form an aerodynamic wing.
The document U.S. Pat. No. 8,302,828 shows a cross bar of a roof carrier for vehicles, which uses one wire and has a lever on only one side and which uses a two-stage locking method.
From U.S. Pat. No. 4,448,337 there is known a carrier system with fixed slat assemblies (a kind of rail mechanism) having slots for fixation of brackets, which presents disadvantages from several view points.